


Disconnected

by Nununununu



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Aliens, Don't copy to another site, Getting Together, Healing, Holding Hands, M/M, Medical Experimentation, Mpreg, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Pregnant through noncon medical experimentation but becoming protective of the baby, Recovery, Robot/Human Relationships, Robot/Human child, Touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:07:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23448274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nununununu/pseuds/Nununununu
Summary: Sometimes, when he doesn’t expect it, Cassian can feel the thing inside him move.
Relationships: Cassian Andor/K-2SO
Comments: 12
Kudos: 51
Collections: Unusual_Bearings_2020





	Disconnected

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Artemis1000](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artemis1000/gifts).



> For Artemis1000 :) Inspired by the prompts: 
> 
> Body Horror - nonconsensually modified to allow for pregnancy  
> Character provides comfort to pregnant partner  
> Difficult Pregnancy  
> Hybrid Pregnancy  
> Merging DNA and Code to Create a New AI  
> Pregnant In Times of War/Conflict/Danger  
> Pregnant through noncon medical experimentation but becoming protective of the baby  
> Robot/Human Hybrid Children
> 
> Trigger warning for an instance of non-graphic and semi-unintentional self-harm.

Sometimes, when he doesn’t expect it, Cassian can feel the thing inside him move.

They keep him alongside the other test subjects in a sterile grey room. The massive, equally grey aliens seem to dislike edges – everything in the lab is curved, smooth. The screens they loom over fold away neatly at the end of each test period, the tools they use on the subjects cleaned by small, scurrying semi-sentient slaves who also clear away any mess.

‘Mess’ meaning failed experiments. Subjects who can’t endure. The various fluids different species expel when in assorted forms of distress.

Cassian has experienced torture before on more than one occasion. He has been incarcerated on five and survived in distinctly less sanitary conditions. He has been kept from sunlight for weeks upon end and bears multiple marks of missions gone wrong upon his skin.

This is nothing.

It should be nothing. He forces his body to build up a resistance to the drugs the aliens give all of the subjects regardless of species, making a mental note himself of who appears alert, who appears weakest, who breaks down and begs and screams.

He tells himself the paralytic is the most difficult to bear. When he escapes – because he will escape; he has vital information to pass onto the Rebellion and, besides, Kay will never forgive him if he fails – he will have a troubling amount of muscle to build back up, along with weight he didn’t have to spare.

The aliens treat their test subjects like a child might their dolls. And dolls don’t require a sufficient supply of food.

The thing inside Cassian stirs again, as if roused by the silence of the lab. The scurrying slaves never turn the lights off and the constant brightness is also something many of the subjects seem to find hard to bear.

Cassian has experienced extreme sleep deprivation before. Even so, however he hates the necessity of lowering his guard, he forces himself to snatch what shallow, uneasy rest he can, because he is conscious he is starting to hallucinate.

-**-

He hallucinates Kay. This is –

No.

The thing implanted within Cassian gets bigger, feeling like it nudges up uncomfortably against his insides, putting pressure against his ribcage, his bladder, his backbone.

The aliens are taking more of an interest in him. Cassian endeavours not to make eye contact and tells himself it is because it might give away his level of consciousness. Although the visions get more frequent, he still has no trouble seeing the information his captors input regarding him upon the screen.

He is starting to learn their language. They do not speak – only the test subjects sometimes make sounds – but the written words contain repeated elements, certain common words. Even before meeting Kay, Cassian had made a habit of breaking codes.

He learned the sequence of numbers the aliens label him with early on. It’s not so different from his clearance code for the Rebellion.

“ _Mm_ –” Despite all his training, a noise almost jerks out of Cassian when the massive alien holding him touches something inside his body and the thing they put in him reacts as if it’s seeking to scurry deeper inside him, to get away.

He wants to vomit.

He doesn’t let himself.

-**-

“Cassian!”

It can’t actually be Kay. Cassian is on his hands and knees in the lab, shaking fingers attempting to tear open the forcefield a fellow test subject is imprisoned within, a female togruta whose name he would know if he can concentrate enough to think of it. They have been in captivity long enough that she has started to seek out his wandering gaze. Between them, they encouraged the other subjects to resist the paralytic secretly, to strain against it as much as possible.

It seems their captors didn’t conceive that their subjects might also come to communicate through code.

The thing pushing and shoving within Cassian’s midriff is almost enough to cancel out thought, as is the flickering around the edges of his vision. The sound of the painfully familiar voice calling his name is tremendously distracting. But it can’t be real and the small, scurrying slaves have slipped up, leaving a vital button depressed, and he’s not about to waste the opportunity.

Further subjects cluster anxiously behind him, those he has already freed, those of them who can sit or stand. Others slump like puppets, strings cut. A rodian is weeping uncontrollably.

“ _Cassian_ ,” Kay says again, closer.

He can’t –

Cassian can’t afford to hope. He sets his jaw against the ache in his stomach, the greater ache in his chest, and continues ripping at the forcefield with all the strength he can muster – at the strange barrier using technology he hadn’t seen before coming here, that keeps subjects aloft while stored.

His hands are shaking ever harder as the forcefield tears back at them. There’s a burning smell.

“ _Cassian!_ ”

Cassian has hallucinated Kay’s voice so many times throughout the duration of his capture. His mind conjuring up the sight of the droid bursting into the lab, blasters raised; catching an alien around the neck and squeezing tight –

It’s not real. It _can’t_ be real; he wants it too much and he doesn’t get to have the things he wants.

But what Cassian hasn’t hallucinated, however, is the feeling of Kay’s hand falling on his shoulder urgently, gripping almost too tightly, and that’s what happens now.

After an estimated two months untouched except by the thickly gloved hands of his captors, the sensation makes his whole body shudder, his teeth chattering. It _is_ Kay touching him, it truly is Kay – Kay whose presence Cassian has missed and longed for so very badly, despite his desperate efforts not to think on it –

It’s almost enough to break him. He plunges his hands further into the wildly sparking forcefield.

“Cassian,” Kay repeats sharply, vocabulator splitting into countless uneven tones. Cassian has never heard him sound so urgent, so agonised, “Stop. You have already destroyed it. _Stop_.”

Cassian has never been good at stopping.

“Or I will stop you. You should know that.”

Yes. He does know. It takes everything in him, but Cassian manages to pull back.

The hand on his shoulder is somehow heavy enough to prevent him from turning around, although Kay is being very careful to avoid Cassian’s more obvious injuries.

“I have killed the creatures holding you captive,” Kay’s focus doesn’t switch to the people around them, despite voices rising in gratitude, relief and tentative hope.

Cassian’s own voice chokes him. He can’t seem to rise up from the hunch he’s in. He can’t seem to stop staring at his damaged hands. The thing within him batters his body.

“You need medical attention immediately,” Kay states with surprising gentleness, and Cassian’s unsure who he’s talking to, but the lab is spinning and there are colours in his peripheral vision that aren’t grey –

Shining durasteel and bright optics that hurt hurt _hurt_ to look at –

Emotion battles to erupt like a tidal wave out of his throat. His ribs feel like they crack with it. Someone is screaming.

It might be him.

-**-

Back at base, after a long journey; after Kay does his utmost to stabilise the other captives – other _people_ – crammed into their tiny ship –

After Cassian loses time in an induced coma back at the base, while medics argue with command over what to do with the thing inside him, and Kay stands guard over his berth, refusing to let anyone near until he is threatened with deactivation despite Cassian’s long-standing orders that this never occur –

After. After all that.

Cassian pretends not to remember waking from the coma more than once, summoned into consciousness by his own automatic resistance to it, due to the necessity of his profession and his unacknowledged hatred of the artificial nothingness.

He pretends not to see grey everywhere once he succeeds in demanding his release from medbay, the colour imposed upon the Rebel base like his vision has been washed out, something inside his mind wincing at the sharp edges everywhere at first.

It’s not the longest time he’s been incarcerated. It probably won’t be the last. Cassian tells himself there’s no reason for the experience to have particularly affected him. Subtly researching the status of the people formerly imprisoned alongside him, he learns they have been moved to a secure health facility, and does what little he can for them from afar.

It’s not as if he has any need for the backlog of pay Draven has assigned him for those two months, after all. The Rebellion can ill afford to waste the credits, but the thought of accepting it leaves Cassian feeling nauseated and returning it would raise too many questions. The health facility welcomes the anonymous donation.

It will help those far more deserving than him.

He has the suspicion that Kay, at least, is aware of this decision, but thankfully the droid doesn’t comment for once.

“I understand there is a high probability you would prefer to be alone,” Kay does observe however, as he looms over Cassian one evening, “However, as you know, I have been tasked with monitoring you.” He doesn’t pause, “I would do this anyway.”

Nodding to show his understanding, Cassian manoeuvres his changing body onto his side on his narrow bunk, propping himself on a hip so he can stare at the wall even though the position hurts his back. Although he can’t quite conceal the struggle it takes him to do this, Kay doesn’t offer to help him, and for this he is grateful.

“I am confident it will ease your suffering if you concede to take the painkillers medbay provided,” Kay is wedged between the table and the sparse set of drawers that contain Cassian’s two sets of civilian outfits, in so far as they are clothing suitable for use on missions, and his spare uniform.

They hang too big on Cassian in some places now, and are far too tight in others. The pills remain untouched on the small table that is one of the sole other pieces of furniture in the room. His hand twitches as if it seeks to rise to his belly, his fingers unscarred from the forcefield although it feels like they should be.

“The medic I spoke to gave her assurances they will not interfere,” Even so Kay doesn’t insist.

Cassian is grateful all over again that Kay doesn’t say the word ‘child’.

-**-

It is not a child.

He is sure of this. The thing kicks and pushes at his body, and refuses to emerge. It comes to respond to Kay’s voice – a fit of vertigo assails Cassian worse than any he’s had in years on discovering this – but it is signally _not a child_.

He reminds himself of this time and again.

The aliens were seeking to make weapons. Planning to download code from the best of the synthetic warrior race they served in order to form hybrid half-organic half-synthetic soldiers, according to the records Cassian had come to understand and the information the small Rebellion team dismantling and destroying the lab had reported back.

The aliens were not capable of procreating during times of strife and their war – a battle entirely separate from anything to do with the Empire or Rebellion – had been ongoing for centuries. Desperate lest they run out of anyone to fight, they had thereby sought other ways to perpetuate, not caring about the cost.

“Draven does not want me to inform you that the Empire has learned of the survivors,” Kay ducks into Cassian’s small chambers to inform him, “Based on the gathered intel, I predict there is a less than a six hour window before an attack.”

Cassian is –

Cassian is tired. Tired of being confined to his room due to his refusal to return to medbay; to being forced off-duty; to being limited to a set of frustratingly gentle restorative exercises; to not being able to glance at his own body without feeling horror creeping up his throat.

It’s not so much that he has a strong aversion towards the thing inside him itself, in truth. He is more – ambivalent towards it. Sometimes, when he places his palm gingerly on top of what feels like a small limb and it moves in response, he almost feels –

Well. It is of no matter.

Still the thing is _alive_ , when Cassian has caused so much death, and he finds he will not be responsible for the loss of it. Nor is he willing to allow the other survivors to fall into Imperial hands.

As such, he makes himself eat another mouthful of the bland, nutrient-laced grains the medics have deemed suitable and doesn’t let himself grimace. Then, without allowing himself to examine the impulse, he rises from the table to pull the blanket off his narrow berth, folding it down tight and small. When the thing is finally out of him, it will – it will need to be wrapped in something.

Right?

He doesn’t even know that much about it.

“We _are_ leaving, then?” Some process inside of Kay speeds up a notch, “I took the liberty of preparing the ship.”

“Thanks,” Something stirs inside Cassian that isn’t the chil– the thing. He has to pause and concentrate on his breathing for a moment, just looking down at the blanket in his hand, “Kay –”

That something inside him feels like it’s under immense pressure – like it’s long been webbed with deceptively fine cracks, but is only now coming close to falling apart.

Slowly, very carefully, he lets himself reach out for his friend.

“Cassian,” Stooping over further as if trying to lessen the height difference between them, Kay bridges the remaining distance between them until their fingers touch.

The contact shouldn’t feel significant, Cassian is certain, but it does.

They both look at their joined fingers for what feels like a long time before the droid’s optics switch to the blanket, Kay evidently extrapolating its intended purpose.

“I feel I should inform you that my medical directories do not cover more than the most typical means of removing a foreign body from an organic,” he remarks, which is one way to put it, “While I am planning to hijack a medical droid and as such obtain greater detail, given the possibility that –” He interrupts himself in clear surprise, vocabulator glitching, “C-Cassian?”

Cassian’s hand seems to have moved as if of its own accord, drawing Kay’s towards the swell of his belly.

“Mm?” It’s like someone else speaks for him too, a voice rising up from deep inside him, from within that broken part, “Kay. Do you –”

Surely Kay would have no desire whatsoever to touch. But inside Cassian, the child – no, the thing is reacting to Kay’s voice, moving as if angling itself towards him, limbs shifting as if reaching for the droid.

Such thoughts have to be nonsense. The tiny being is nothing but a weapon-to-be. A weapon like Cassian has been for so many years.

And Kay isn’t complaining.

“ _Oh_ ,” The droid’s metal fingers make contact almost gingerly. His palm a surprisingly warm weight against the curve of Cassian’s belly, fingers spreading to encompass much of it, far more than Cassian’s smaller hand can manage.

The child kicks and wriggles as if in response.

“It – knows you,” Cassian doesn’t sound like himself at all. The breath he drags in rasps, “I think – somehow. It knows you.”

_It likes you,_ is what he can’t say.

“It’s partially synthetic, isn’t it,” Kay’s other hand soothes gently through Cassian’s hair, guiding it back from his temples, tracing briefly over the rim of his ear while Cassian conceals a shiver. His own fingers tighten around Kay’s where they’re both touching his belly. There’s a note of something like wonder in Kay’s tone when he continues, “However, Cassian, while it is undeniable the aliens intended to engineer the infant into becoming one of their own, it is also made out of _you_.”

He pauses, an internal fan whirring, as if debating whether to speak further. The fact that Kay has come to edit himself, when before he would say whatever crossed his mind, is –

Cassian dares to lace his fingers properly with Kay’s, feeling the child settle within him.

This is something he has until now refused to consider. But it’s true. In order to implant it successfully within him, the aliens had been forced to include an element of his own DNA – he’d been able to extrapolate as much from the tests and the information recorded on the screen, as well as what had happened to some of the failed experiments, “That – doesn’t make it mine.”

He had never wanted, never planned to have children – to do so while at war and in his profession would be illogical, even verging on cruel. The only thought he had ever paid towards it was a long time ago, back when he had requested to be medically sterilised.

But in another lifetime –

“One could argue that it does,” Kay answers as Cassian had known he would, while Cassian doesn’t permit himself to recall just how young he was when he lost his own parents.

“I am not endeavouring to manoeuvre or influence you in any way,” The droid’s hand slips down from Cassian’s hair to cradle his cheek as Kay’s optics scan his face, “But Cassian, I want you to know that whatever the outcome is, whatever decision you may make, you will have my support.”

“ _Kay_ –” The back of Cassian’s eyes sting. His thoughts are full of his friend’s name. His chest feels full of it too, his heart hammering. The child inside him stirs, almost as if sensing the emotion swamping him.

Almost as if reacting in concern.

It can’t be. It _can’t_ be, but –

But.

“The aliens didn’t get as far as copying the code they needed from their warrior race,” However he doesn’t want to, Cassian has to break away in order to be able to say this, setting his jaw against the loss of Kay’s touch.

Compelling himself into motion, he collects his pack and locates his knife. A sterilisation device for some sort of drinking receptacle will probably be in order, if the child does decide to emerge while they are off-base, and they will need to expand the contents of the med kit.

Children need stuff, don’t they, whatever their species. They need nourishment and – things like _affection_ , things he never had past a certain age as a kid, and –

“Cassian,” Kay’s fingers closes around his wrist, halting him in his tracks, “Your heart is beating erratically.”

“Mm,” Cassian’s hands are trembling where they’re buried in his pack. What is he _thinking_?

That they – he – they would somehow keep it?

That –

That it would be born eventually, inevitably, and he didn’t care for the thought of it suffering. This child that was indeed, in a sense, perhaps a part of him, and –

“Cassian?” Kay’s other hand settles on Cassian’s shoulder, grounding him, enabling him to take in a steadying breath, “If it is possible, would you like me to –”

“Yes,” Cassian is saying before he can stop himself, his own hand going back up to cover Kay’s.

“Attempt to connect to the child,” A touch of amusement colours Kay’s voice.

“Do you –” His fingers closing over his friend’s knuckles, Cassian turns his head just enough so that his cheek brushes a metal wrist, “Do you think it could be self-aware?”

Even though the child is half-finished, incomplete; unable to thrive outside of him without the addition of necessary code. Even though he’s well aware the aliens would deem it an impossibility –

Cassian can't deny the certainty that the child has developed its own form of sentience _._ And that it has the potential to be something other than a weapon.

“Providing a connection can indeed be established, I predict a seventy five percent chance of my ascertaining the answer to that,” Rather than providing further statistics, Kay traces his thumb in a line up from Cassian’s shoulder to very gently touch the port the aliens’ implanted in the side of his neck, under his jaw. The one they had plugged themselves and their technology into when they were working on him, in addition to opening him up elsewhere.

“Would you –” Swallowing, Cassian starts to ask again. Letting his eyes close, he focuses on the comforting scent of oil and metal, his ears full of the reassuring hum of his friend’s systems.

Kay is so close behind him, his other hand exactly the right pressure on his shoulder. That broken part inside Cassian feeling like it’s starting to stitch itself back together.

“Would you be willing to – complete it?” His heart is racing again, but not from panic now, “Would you be willing to share your code?”

_Please_.

This is the question he’s wanted to ask for longer than he can possibly acknowledge.

Behind him, Kay’s fans whir louder than Cassian has ever heard them. Even so they don’t cover the small noise he produces in response – one as emotional as Cassian has ever heard him make.

“ _Cassian_ ,” Kay turns Cassian around to face him, his hands rising to cup both of Cassian’s cheeks this time, his thumb brushing Cassian’s lower lip. He shakes his head as if actually lost for words for once, before managing, “Of course.”

_It would be yours then_ _too_ _,_ Cassian can almost say. Just the thought of it, even just the possibility, makes all of it that much more bearable somehow.

From inside him, the child lets out a quiet but audible trill.

“Cassian –!” Kay startles just as much as him, servos juddering, and then Cassian is laughing silently, shaking with the force of it.

Wetness might spill onto his cheeks as well, but he’s not paying attention to that.

Letting himself be drawn in when large metal hands coax him against Kay’s chestplate, Cassian brings his own arms up to wind around as much of his friend as he can reach, the child within him between them as if held by them both. Although –

Friend? Yes, always. Kay’s his best friend.

But he’s also so much more than that.

_I love you,_ is another thought Cassian can almost acknowledge, one he never thought he would be able to confess even to himself. It’s there in every part of him, not just the broken one. Filling him up to the point he might even be able to say it one day.

“Come on, we need to get to the ship,” As little as he wants to, he forces himself to pull back, finding that the child lets out another faint buzz. It’s not binary. It’s not any language yet, going by the considering tilt of Kay’s head.

But it could become so.

As if aware of what he’s thinking, Kay touches the edge of the port in Cassian’s neck again, and nods, “Soon.”

Soon they will find out for definite what Cassian is sure he already knows; soon they will be able to provide the child with Kay’s code. Soon they’ll offer assistance to the medical facility and protect the other survivors from the Imperial threat, whether Draven grants them permission to leave –

Or not.

Cassian is aware he should be appalled by this decision; by the thought of breaking orders. Of putting something other than the Rebellion first. But he swings his bag up onto his shoulder, drops his knife into the holster in his boot, and it feels like they’re doing the right thing.

He hands Kay a blaster next.

“Not for now,” Cassian has no chance of keeping the corners of his mouth from lifting, “But when we get there –”

“Of course,” Rolling his optics, Kay conceals it within an internal compartment before touching a durasteel finger to Cassian’s grin, “Ready?”

His palm on the curve of his belly, feeling the child inside him nudge back at his touch, Cassian lets the tip of his tongue whisper against that fingertip, relishing Kay’s electronic gasp. The breath he takes in himself feels easier than any he has in months.

“ _Yes_.”

Wherever they go, the child is likely to be in danger. But at the medical facility, there are other survivors who will likely be in the same situation; other infants who will similarly at some point emerge. Whether the children’s chances are better together or not, at least they won’t be alone.

And Cassian’s not alone either, is he. He hasn’t been since he met Kay.

“Let’s go,” As they head for the door, Cassian catches hold of Kay’s hand again in his own.


End file.
